Central or Middle Bavarian form a subgroup of Bavarian dialects in large parts of Austria and the German state of Bavaria along the Danube river, on the northern side of the Eastern Alps.

They are spoken in the 'Old Bavarian' regions of Upper Bavaria (with Munich (see Munich German)), Lower Bavaria and in the adjacent parts of the Upper Palatinate region around Regensburg, in Upper and Lower Austria, in Vienna (see Viennese German), in the state of Salzburg, as well as in the northern and eastern parts of Styria and Burgenland.

That means that the distinct languages of Vienna and Munich are very different from each other, but the dialects of any two neighbouring towns in between will be quite similar.

[citation needed] However, due to influences of the corresponding political centres, discontinuous change is nowadays noticeable along the national border between Austria and Germany.

[citation needed] Generally, Viennese has some characteristics differentiating it from other Bavarian dialects due to the influence of languages spoken by people moving to Vienna from many areas of Austria-Hungary during the 19th century.